MDS 3.0 to 'dramatically affect' survey process, CMS says

MDS 3.0 will “dramatically affect the traditional survey process,” an official with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services told listeners during a conference call with long-term care providers Thursday.

The survey system will change back to a non-quality measure (QM)-based system, according to the CMS official during Thursday's Open Door Forum conference call. To prepare providers, CMS will issue a temporary change to that process via a survey and certification memo. The memo will be posted on the CMS website by the end of this month. MDS 3.0 is set to take effect Oct. 1.

CMS during the call also alerted listeners that the long-promised MDS 3.0 training materials are now being finished up and published.

“We had staff here that were literally working into late hours of the evening and weekends trying to bring this together,” an apologetic Tom Dudley from CMS said. “It took a little bit longer than anticipated.”

All of the MDS 3.0 training manuals have now been published, with the exception of appendix F, which will be released at an undetermined point, according to Dudley. Similarly, all training slides and instructor guides for MDS 3.0 are now available, save Chapter 3, Section M.